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Go
Tell it on the Mountain
James Baldwin
By Steven G. Fullwood
If James Baldwin were alive today, can you imagine him sipping a café au late at
Starbucks on 125th Street? Neither can I. Personally, I picture James at the Lenox Lounge,
West 22nd's or at Nikki's, sprinkling his conversation with French because he's had a wee
bit too much to drink. I'd hang out with him, read him my bad poetry, and listen to him
regale me with stories about his childhood, much of which was fictionalized in his first
novel, Go Tell It On The Mountain.
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First published in 1953 and now an American classic, Go
tells the story of John Grimes, a 14-year old black boy coming of age in Harlem. Based on
the author's experiences as a teenaged preacher in a small revivalist church, Go describes
two days and one long night in the life of the Grimes family.
As a voracious reader growing up in Ohio, I was enraptured by the stunning descriptions of
life in Harlem: chocolate, caramel and crème-colored brothers and sisters, high-stepping
out their brownstones dressed to the nines, on their way to the Savoy, or The Apollo or
the Cotton Club. However, Go, told me a different story, much like my own. We bear witness
to both saint and sinner waiting on God's justice to smite their enemies, no matter if
that enemy is dad, mom, brother or sister.
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| Born out of wedlock, John questions his
role, indeed his life as an impending preacher. John's hatred of his hardened stepfather
Gabriel is equally matched by Gabriel's own seething loathing of John. Gabriel is a
sanctimonious deacon who rules the Grimes family with a Bible and his fist. Caught in the
middle is Elizabeth, John's mother, a loving, but sad woman who does her best to support
her husband and her four children. Florence, Gabriel's sister and blood link to his
troubled past, is an sickly woman whose salvation is firmly rooted in examining the
choices she made earlier in life. Baldwin weaves a complex tale of how Gabriel, Elizabeth
and Florence came to be in the rural South, all of whom migrated to the northern ghetto.
Each character quietly remembers his or her past prior to John getting the "holy
ghost" on the threshing floor of the Temple of the Fire Baptized church. |
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Essentially, Go is a ritual about love and its denial.
Steeped in biblical references and vivid realism, Baldwin shows home as family and family
as home, where geography transcends time and space. Written in clean, cool prose, Go
clearly demonstrates that no one escapes the complexity of what it means to be human, what
it is to suffer and how it feels like to be moved by the breath of God. M
August 1999 |
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